New GE leader hopes to make lasting change

That means plans set in motion to reduce the Erie workforce by more than 1,000 people will likely go forward, said Stokes, the new chief executive at GE Transportation.

A negotiating process, required by contract, led in summer 2013 to a failure for the company and its union workers to find common ground.

The process of laying off hundreds of workers has been set in motion -- nearly 500 jobs have been cut so far -- and isn't likely to stop until 950 hourly workers and 100 salaried employees have been removed from the payroll.

Stokes doesn't expect to rewrite that history.

But the 42-year-old Cleveland native is hoping to leave his own mark on GE Transportation, a General Electric division with nearly $6 billion in annual revenues.

Stokes, who was in town recently to introduce the company's new purpose statement -- "GE Transportation. We set potential in motion" -- talked about a shared sense of ownership and pride.

"Russell has a real passion for GE Transportation and its people," said Joel Berdine, general manager of GE Transportation's global supply chain. "He welcomes ideas and feedback, and his leadership creates great energy."

His goals don't end at the edge of the GE campus.

Stokes said he's also eager to restore the community's pride in the 107-year-old enterprise that Thomas Edison built here.

Stokes, who spent more than two years living in Erie and working for the company he now leads, arrives at a pivotal time.

On one hand, the company is facing a newly resurgent competitor in the former Electro-Motive Diesel, now owned by industrial powerhouse Caterpillar.

At the same time, the company continues to design and test emerging technology that could one day make liquefied natural gas the fuel of choice for the nation's freight railroads.

Stokes sees it as a chance to be part of something big.

"We are at a place where something this big could happen in our lifetime," Stokes said. "I struggle with why people aren't running around this building high-fiving each other with excitement."

Like his predecessor, Lorenzo Simonelli, Stokes spends much of his time on an airplane or visiting with potential customers from around the world.

Stokes brings to the job some of the credentials one might expect from the chief executive of GE Transportation. He has a degree in finance, experience in sales and has been climbing the General Electric career path, winning national honors and something called a Commercial Quality Black Belt along the way.

But he doesn't claim to have all the answers. In fact, the company's new chief executive is quick to insist that many of the people he works with are smarter than he is.

"I have a very small ego," he said. "My parents told me, 'You're not that special, but you can do special things.'"

That's how he wants employees throughout the company to think.

"I need you to believe in yourself even more than I believe in you," he said.

Stokes spent more than 30 months as vice president for global services at GE Transportation.

His comments suggest, however, that in smaller, less formal ways he's spent a lifetime preparing for this role.

Stokes, who was the captain of his high school track and football teams in Cleveland, didn't know who built it at the time, but he grew up listening to the whoosh of a GE-built commuter train that passed his house as a kid. The sound and the idea of the passing train got into his head. Stokes remembers leaving his window open a crack so that he could hear the commuter train.

He's a guy who sets up a model train around the Christmas tree each year, he said, a person who is happy to share his excitement about running the world's largest locomotive company.

Stokes, whose grandfather and uncle were both union workers at a General Motors plant, has met once with the company's union leaders.

"You have to respect people enough to sit down and talk to them," Stokes said. "You have to understand that these people have families to feed."

There is nothing to suggest, however, that Stokes plans to give anyone a free pass.

"I have to find out ways to do what we need to do to be competitive," he said.

He's hoping to be working toward that goal for a while.

"I know people have come and gone pretty quickly around here," he said. "But I didn't take this job with any plan to move out of it. I believe in this business. I think the opportunities are limitless."

JIM MARTIN can be reached at 870-1668 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmartin.